What are you afraid of? Do you remember the time when fear felt like a vise grip? You’ll never forget how you felt when the surge of anxiety and adrenalin flowed through your mind and body.

Sometimes that type of fear can happen at an amusement park after the ticket is purchased and you’re harnessed in a seat or cage for the gut wrenching joy ride or a plunging “death-drop” experience…and that fear can be quite awesome. Even though your throat is raw from screaming out your lungs, you’ll find yourself back in line to do it again. While you remember the fear, you are not afraid to purchase a ticket for another repeat. You push through the fear and you go for it.

There are experiences that I hope will never happen again as I remember how afraid I was…like the time a vicious dog charged and lunged at me or when I was in a bad car accident.  I had to break through that type of fear so that it would not consume me or prevent me from going on a leisure run through my neighborhood or driving a car again.  No one coaxed me  to put on my running shoes or to drive to the grocery store. I just did it…I got over the fear.

Yet, on a more personal level, I became very afraid after hearing the doctor say, “Possibly five or six months. The tumor is large and in the worst possible place.”  This type of fear did consume me to the point that I began to doubt God’s love, his goodness, kindness and sovereignty.  Life for me became a day-to-day survival just to keep my head up and try to push through the fear of impending death and loss…

However, I could not push through the fear and I could not get over it. I felt the grip of fear and doubt and it cast an ominous shadow over God’s love and grace. The more I doubted God, the tighter I felt the squeeze of fear.  The calendar was now at four months. Exhausted, depressed and fearful while the clock was ticking.

Thankfully, God did not abandon me, even though it seemed that I had abandoned Him. To get over this doubt, I needed to run to the One I doubted, the author of my story. I saturated my thoughts with words of truth, God’s word. I replaced anxious thoughts with prayers of praise. God helped me to believe the gospel again…to be assured that His love for us reaches beyond the grave. I imagined myself going to Jesus’ tomb and looking inside. It is empty. Jesus is alive.  The death of my loved one was the beginning of her new life. I am confident of that. I am not afraid. “Thank you, God, that your perfect love casts out fear.”